The healing journey of a widowed, unschooling badass in Delaware.
After a gloriously lazy, and uninspiringly rainy, Saturday. My sons and I finished the live action version of The Lion King, based on the plot of Hamlet. We interspersed that with watching the first half of a theater production of Coriolanus, starring Tom Hiddleston.
Each of them are intense stories with strong lessons about humanity.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
Each morning is the opening strings in a hymn of potential. Spartan sounds float in, out of the perceived silence of sleep.
I’ve done this exercise with my sons many times, but I like to hack it when they say, “When I grow up…”
I say, “Why wait? What can you do today to take a step towards that dream? How can I help?”
Today is the day to start the journey.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
I thought I’d come here to share anxieties as I peer out over the precipice into a frightening unknown. Then I thought that was bullshit. Fear has enough power without me spending more time on it than it already demands.
I choose courage as the wilderness between love and fear. Whenever I am in that place of peace and confident power that love provides, it is because there is a journey at my back. I find that place when I trust in God and myself. I trust that He has more love to share and that I have the courage to seek it out.
I’ve learned that every journey is within. Every question that needs to be answered is within. It’s not easy and I barely have the patience to let it work, but all the answers are there. I’ve had a remarkable life of receiving wisdom. I’ve often thought of myself as a problem solver, but it turns out that it has been my stubborn nature to hold onto a problem long enough for the solution to appear. Stubborness can outlast impatience. However, there is a better way. Patience and calm allow wisdom to more freely flow through me. Yoga, soccer, and prayer give my busy mind a break and let me feel the energy of the Universe.
Sometimes I can outstretch my arms, open myself, and be the wave of light flying through silent space.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
There are moments when I am filled with peace, but fear is pressing in on me. It’s not my fear, but the fear I feel in virtually everyone’s actions and words. Many people are acting out of fear of the government, fear of losing social capital, fear of uncertainty, and fear of their own instincts.
For my part, I try to be aware of that fear. I’ve been ALL CAPPED on Facebook and, at best, dismissed when I’ve presented information contrary to the dominant narrative. I’m grateful to discover which of my friends are warriors and which I’ll be glad to see gone from my life. I’m grateful for a family structure that is loving and built on massive amounts of time together. I am grateful for a girlfriend who wants to visit us and hungers for time outside. I’m grateful for a singular friendship, no, kinship in Christ, in widowhood, in single parenthood in homeschool, in never blindly accepting the narrative…a woman who could be my twin sister.
I’m a blessed man. I try to live in peace and love. But these last couple weeks have been plagued by a creeping fear.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
The Dark Crystal Board Game is beautiful and complicated. We had to take a family break after page 14 of the instructions.
Finite is easier to grasp than infinite. Fear is easier than Love. Infinite will not be grasped, only glimpsed. The more I work on loving, the greater the project becomes. Love doesn’t know boundaries, it doesn’t know limits, finites, or fear.
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I’ve spent the last few days on finites. I’ve felt fear over an empty calendar, the loss of seemingly critical support groups, the backlash against a hug or small gathering…
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This morning the sky was full of pretty things, a cotton candy sunrise, a crescent moon, a planet (maybe), a star, and all the life that comes with a late winter day.
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I remembered this phrase, “We will gain more than we have lost.” It came to me in one of those tongues of the Holy Spirit, some piece of me that is often quiet.
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I wrote it down on a square of plywood two years ago and imagine it has been burned to ash, an invisible molecule of carbon on the wind.
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A new life calls, a new adventure dawns.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
Temple
Ultimately, we had more than 29 pieces for our Delaware Fun-A-Day project. I couldn’t exclude any of the imaginative creations that came out of our Lego workshop.
Our youngest builder got me excited with her enthusiasm and unclouded vision. To be invited into a child’s imagination and asked for help making that dream become real is one of my greatest thrills.
She built this beach scene on her own and I’m amazed at how she recreated the waves.
My son helped her with the grocery cart and we had a blast stocking the counters.
This woodland scene was a team effort and brought another level of depth to our project.
More forest and more action and adventure from one of our boy builders.
God bless and thank you for building, er, I mean reading,
Jason
Too busy building to post, the last few days of our project had many friends visiting and many awesome creations appearing.
The first is a woodland scene with a stormtrooper on the hunt for a tiny meal. I love the careful placement of the predator and his prey and how alive these woods are.
The wackiest build of the month may be the Mad Max-inspired Chicken Smasher.
I picked up the helmet piece and said, “This would make a great grill on a battle wagon.” My son and his friend went to work, adding water effects and a chicken wedge from an old McDonald’s promotion.
Children get crazier as they work through their familiar builds and find confidence and freedom in their own creativity. Frankly, I’m not sure what’s happening at this robbery. The police are already there (with a Pegasus-emblazoned shield, no less), the thief is wielding a laser sword, and a man is idly strumming his acoustic guitar in the midst of the chaos.
It’s everything a Lego scene should be.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason
I love these inventive scenes from one of our young, home-educated friends.
He created a couple unique pieces by challenging himself to try new techniques.
The dogsled team scene is particularly interesting as the sled is on Lego skis and moves side to side behind the dogs. I believe this is our only scene to have a movment component.
The desert scene was inspired by his desire to make a cactus. I struggled through our pile of idea books to find him an example, but came up with nothing.
I found one bright green “shoulder” element and turned it upside down and we imagined it as an arm. He went to town on the inverted build (known as Studs Not On Top, or SNOT) as I gave him an example of how he could fix it to his desert baseplate.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason